Book Review: The Girl In 6E by A.R. Torre

About The Author:Alessandra Torre has written nine novels, five of which became #1 Erotic Bestsellers. Her first book, Blindfolded Innocence, became a breakout hit, rising to the top of the charts on Kindle and Amazon where it attracted the interest of major publishing houses and garnered Torre her first print deal with Harlequin HQN. Less than twelve months later, Torre signed a second print deal, this time with Redhook (Hachette) for her erotic thriller The Girl in 6E.

From her home near the warm waters of the Emerald Coast in Florida, she devotes several hours each day to various writing projects and interacting with her fans on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. Happily married and with one son, she loves watching SEC football games, horseback riding, reading and watching movies.

About The Book:Deanna Madden, aka Jessica Reilly, hasn’t touched another person in three years. She hasn’t left her apartment. She makes money from performing to webcams on a sex site. She’s doing alright. The money is piling up in the bank. And she hasn’t killed anyone in years. But when Deanna sees on the news that a little girl named Annie has gone missing, the story rattles her carefully ordered world. It’s uncomfortably similar to the dark fantasy of one of her clients. She’s convinced he’s responsible for the girl’s abduction – but no one will listen to her. So, after three years, Deanna finally leaves the apartment…

General Observations:~Shown Their Work: The author has clearly put in a lot of effort in researching Deanna’s chosen profession, while it can get graphical in description, I found that it made the story interesting and added realism.

~Plot and Characters: I really like Deanna as a female anti-hero, I like how she’s handled her situation to the best of her abilities and she’s willing and able to acknowledge her limitations. Too many characters like her are male and I was worried she would be just another “man with a vagina” character. I also loved the relationship between her and Jeremy, just how patient he was, how he didn’t judge her or try to fix her. I also like Mike (despite his character flaws), I thought he was a good link to the outside world who knew about Deanna’s past history but didn’t feel sorry for her and kept associating with her regardless. I also like how Deanna acknowledged drama moments between her and Mike but was also smart enough to say “I’ll deal with this later, now I have bigger priorities”.

~Intense Theme and Subject: One of the major themes in this novel is family trauma and mental illness. I don’t want to spoil the novel, however these aspects are large important parts of the novel, one of the many reasons why Deanna locks herself away is to protect others from her mental illness and violent urges, she does not want to become her mother. As I have friends and family who work as Social Workers, I can attest to the trauma and anxiety an undiagnosed mental illness can have on a family unit, especially children.
I like how the author handled these issues without using unfortunate mental illness clichés or forcing an unrealistic Happy Ending, because with mental illness sometimes there isn’t a happy ending, most cases it’s an ongoing battle with acknowledgement of a patients limits and triggers. I also liked how the author acknowledged the possibility that even if Deanna recovered enough to be around people without fear of her harming them, she could never go back to “normal”.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and would be happy to recommend, however this novel does give graphic descriptions of violence and does deal with erotic services available on the internet, so a word of caution if those aren’t things you’re personally comfortable with.

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Published by B.R. Kyle

B.R. Kyle is an emerging feminist writer from Melbourne, Australia. B.R. Kyle has previously completed a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing and a Bachelor of Creative Arts Industries. She writes and blogs about a wide range of topics, mostly book reviews, mental health, feminist rants and her adventures into accidental cooking.
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